catsidhe

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/backgroundbriefing/stories/2011/3268730.htm

Executive summary: Monckton is an arrogant lying fraud. Every word out of his mouth is a lie, including articles and conjunctions. If you find yourself on the same side of any argument as him, it's time to seriously consider your position.

And the people who cheer him on (literally mindlessly chanting slogans of hatred) are hypocrites and idiots. "The ABC are fascists for daring to print anyone who disagrees with me! I don't think there should be censorship, but anyone who disagrees with Monckton will be locked up when we take over, and any media who published them will be broken up and sold. Because they're fascists."

For fuck's sake. Do they really not see their own jackboots?

If you quote him, or anyone who approvingly quotes him (yes, his obnoxiousness is contagious), for any reason other than to point and laugh at the logorrhoeia of lies falling continuously from his mouth, then you have just lost whatever argument you were participating in, as you have just given up the right to have any opinion you hold taken seriously.

Crossposts: http://catsidhe.livejournal.com/170123.html

Random thoughts bubbling in my head, but they refuse to come out when I want them to. Bastards.

So, instead of an essay, I give you stuff.

Pope says sex education an 'attack on religious freedom'
“Stop oppressing us with your facts and science! We demand the right to keep everyone in the world to our standard of ignorance! If you don't let us tell you how to do things, then you're oppressing us! Wah!”

I propose a new Godwin's Law for Climate Science: if you quote Lord Christopher Monckton in any way which indicates that you actually believe him, or even take him seriously in any way whatsoever, you have just demonstrated that everything else out of your mouth/keyboard is of absolutely no value. It is of course, possible that you might have made a valid point elsewhere, but by quoting Monckton you have demonstrated that it's vanishingly unlikely.

Imagine first that you’re a kid, maybe eleven or twelve, possibly thirteen. You have Asperger’s syndrome, which means that your social skills are impaired already; plus you’re a preteen/young teen, which means that the rules for your social world are constantly in flux. But as of yet, you’re not diagnosed; nor has anyone in your life ever heard the word "Asperger's," nor would they know what it means.

I don't think I had it quite as bad at that age. I only remember fearing for my life a couple of times.
Or maybe I did, and I simply didn't notice.

The University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit had its email hacked, and the vultures have been going over the spoils since then, and pretending they understand the contents.

One of the claims is that those awful, nasty, vicious scientists were nastily and viciously saying rude things about ‘sceptics’, like the ‘sceptics’ who were writing awful papers with broken science, and screaming blue murder when this was pointed out. (“Peer review is supposed to be about me proving you wrong! If it's the other way around, it must be bias and conspiracy, because there are no other explanations!”)

Yes, those horrible horrible climate scientists were rude in kind to people who had been spending years calling them frauds and liars and worse.

It's a good thing none of you Instant Armchair Experts would go and, oh I don't know, make death threats to people in those emails or anything. Because then your claims to have the high moral ground might be revealed as chimerical at best.

For the record, I haven't found mention of a single death threat made to ‘Lord’ Monckton, or de Freitas, or to McKittrick or McIntyre, or to Ian Plimer (by AGW proponents, anyway. He apparently got more than a few from Creationist nutcases.)

But, no. It's AGW proponents[0] who are the ‘religious’ ones. It's AGW proponents who are ‘dangerous’.

[0] That's such a clumsy phrase. The scientists are arguing ‘for’ AGW in the sense that it exists, not that they are ‘for’ it. It's an existential argument, not one of preference. And I don't think there's a single scientist who would not prefer that the science was saying something different. But no matter how hard they try, the data is worse than they thought. And now the politicians are all in Copenhagen, and they're going to do what politicians always do, which is shit in the pot and fuck everything up in the effort to get more for themselves, and somehow the science, and the scientists, will get the blame.

Current Mood: hollow

The usual suspects who have been denying with increasing shrillness over the years that Anthropogenic Global Climate Change, in the form of Global Warming, exists, and have come up with a couple of potential kinks in the various theories put forward into precisely how and why it is happening, and what can be done about it.

One of these theories was that Solar Output was a significant driving factor, that solar wind has been increasing to coincide with increasing temperatures (thus explaining those temperature increases), and that the output was cyclical, and about to start dropping, thus the global temperatures were about to start dropping, thus no anthropogenesis, thus no problem, and anyone who ever hinted otherwise is an ALARMIST!!1! SCAR1nG teh CHIlDernz!!1eleven for n0 REEZNZ!.

(And I don't think that this was an unfair characterisation: those who made the first part of the argument (why solar output means no anthropogenesis) almost universally went on to make the second (Greenies suxx0rz!).)

Except for a few actual scientists, who thought ‘you know what? This is a hypothesis, which can be tested against the evidence. Does the evidence support the hypothesis or not? It turns out, no it doesn't. There is no connection between solar wind and cloud cover, which disproves the thesis that there is a strong causal link, which disproves the hypothesis, thank you for playing.

The actual scientists thanked Dr Svensmark for coming up with the hypothesis so that it could be tested, and another potential distraction removed from the models. Dr Svensmark displayed his credentials as a fully-paid-up Denier by refusing to accept science that disagrees with him. “Terry Sloan has simply failed to understand how cosmic rays work on clouds”, he said. What he means, I think, is that Dr Sloan was looking at the wrong type of clouds. These are special, invisible clouds, which can't be detected and measured, but change the temperature anyway. They are also inhabited by invisible unicorns who shit fairy floss and rainbows.

This is how Science is supposed to work: Evidence is gathered, and a theory extrapolated. Other people try to prove how much more clever they are than the original hypothesisors, by coming up with reasons why the theory isn't true. Everyone goes away and gathers evidence to test all these claims. Then the theory is modified, or redone from scratch, if necessary, redo from start.

Invisible Unicorns are sometimes an unavoidable part of early theories: they indicate ‘we don't know how this bit works, so assume that it does and figure out the rest’. The idea is to eliminate the unicorns. Not just saying ‘you don't understand unicorns like I do, so your evidence is wrong!’

This doesn't eliminate solar output as a factor in global warming, but it does mean that there are limits as to how much can be explained by it. Oh, and use of the solar output argument against anthropogenic global warming is explicitly an argument that global warming exists, just disagreeing over the cause. So if you are going to argue with the solar output line, that means you can't also claim that there is no warming (it's all instrument error, you know), the two arguments neuter each other. Hey, doesn't this mean that Ray Evans and the Lavoisier Group are not actually arguing any cogent position, negating any particular argument by claiming that all of them are true? I'm shocked. Shocked beyond words. It almost sound like they are ignoring inconvenient Science for partisan political Denialism. But I couldn't say that. It's insultingly accurate, and might hurt their feelings.

Current Mood: stressed

Andrew Bolt quotes all the usual suspects in his latest froth about how The Great Global Warming Swindle is Right And True And Good, All Other (Mis)information Is Alarmist Propaganda Spread By The Biased Leftist Stalinist Stronghold the ABC.

Ooh, ooh, let's have a look at his examples, eh?

> Prof John Christy, IPCC lead author and head of Alabama’s Earth System Science Centre
Well, actually he has also said that there is definitely Global Warming — as he should know, as he is one of the people who measured it — and has also said that there cannot but be an anthropogenic cause, but his theory is that it is not through Greenhouse Effect.

So he has said that Global Warming is real, but isn't why most people think it is.

Oh, and he's a Southern Baptist with a degree in Divinity. That means nothing in itself, but kep reading.

> Prof Charles Wax, Mississippi state climatologist
Hrm. That almost seems like a legitimate example. A professional Climatologist who doesn't belong to a paid-up Denier Association, saying “There isn’t a consensus among scientists.” Seems straightforward enough. Only... ‘consensus’ about what? What were the circumstances? Well, the quote was to a Rotary Meeting, those noted left-wing provocateurs. And his message was, again, the Climate is changing, we just don't know why.

Apropos of nothing, “He serves as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Starkville First United Methodist Church”. Means nothing, of course. That is, of itself, completely irrelevent.

> Dr Roy Spencer, formerly NASA’s senior climate scientist
Well, he also believes in Intelligent Design... No, no, he is a Reputable Scientist, and that other stuff is irrelevent. He was, after all, awarded a prize for measuring that very warming. He, again, says that the current effect is real, but counters that it is less relevent over an extended period, ie., that the measurements cannot be relied on more than 400 years ago.

He also “is listed as a member of the Heartland Institute and a contributor to the George C. Marshall Institute.” Those are only two right-wing Climate-Change-Denying organisations, one funded by car companies, the other by ExxonMobil [pdf]. But don't let that get in the way of the Science! And even then, the second isn't denying Climate Change, they're just saying that it isn't ~~oil's~~ humanity's fault.

> Prof emeritus Joel Kauffman, University of the Sciences in Philadelphia
Well, apart from his being a organic chemist, and a noted contrarian (he has a bee in his bonnet about pretty all of accepted medical practice, which is what he is really known for), why should having no background whatsoever in a field necessarily disqualify you from being an expert in it?

> Prof Yuri Izrael, IPCC vice-chairman
Finally, a credible counter-argument. Which is to say, ‘Climate Change is real, but the effects won't be as bad as is being claimed.’ We'll put this one on the unquestionably credible pile. For a total of... well, one, so far.

> Dr Vincent Gray, IPCC reviewer
One of the designated experts at the Heartland Institute of Climate Change Denial. But don't put that against him, look at the science!

> Dr Christopher Landsea, former IPCC author and hurricane expert
Who resigned from the IPCC, citing concerns over politicisation. He also says that there is an anthropocentric Global Warming effect, but questions the effects on hurricane formation (which is, after all, his speciality).

That makes two credibles. Out of seven so far. Still looking.

... you know what? Fuck it. Unlike Bolt, I have a real job.

Of all the arguments from all of the people Bolt has trotted out &mdash many of them straight from the Heartland Institute — the only common argument is that “Everyone else is wrong”. If only, if only any of them agreed with any of the others.

As far as his beloved Fair and Balanced documentary goes, I'll just point you at a couple of counter-counter arguments. Namely, that The Documentary is simply wrong, and the documentary maker is full of shit.

Current Mood: tired

Triple J's Hack did a thing about Climate Change Deniers. [mp3]

There was a little feedback, so they did a followup about those complainants. [mp3]

The gist of these people is

There are thousands of Climate Scientists who disagree with the Consensus -- but no-one knows who they are.
Ray Evans says that there's a CONSPIRACY!!!
Climate Change is, like, real, but most Scientists, like, reckon that it's totally natural, and, like, stuff.
Didn't you see that Documentary in England about the Climate Change Con? (Reply; yes but what about the person who came out and complained about how badly he had been misrepresented? Response; Yeah, but he said stuff out of context, which totally confirms my biases. I mean, yeah, they misrepresented him, but he still said stuff, which could be twisted by scientifically ignorant oil propagandists to sound like "Climate Change Suxx0rz")

OK, I'm exaggerating. Well, except for Ray Evans.

And then tonight they finally played the full interview with Andrew Bolt, which was interrupted by technical faults last night. It's not up yet, but probably will be soon.

Good gods, that man is an arrogant son-of-a-bitch. He spent the entire time attacking the reporter for not interviewing people like him more often, and for being rude about it when he does.

I would say more, and more cogent thing, but I have to wait for the white-hot fires in my head to cool down first.

Current Mood: angry

Word Salad

I'm sorry, who are the fascists, again?

stuff.

Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas.

Next argument?

Is this the best argument Bolt has?

Global warning deniers' Useful Idiots.

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